Durham - deeply disappointed child - any admissions insight

[albertandlilylight]

First choice university by a mile and really really wants to go there and college system would suit very well. 43 (IB) in predicted grades, am told by school very good school reference and personal statement. However, got an offer for a course did not apply for and for which has no interest. Don't understand at all. Worked so hard all the way through school, told hard work rewards and then this. Anyone got any insight to how Durham are offering and is there anything that can be done from here?

Have you asked for feedback? The Admissions Office is far better placed to advise than anybody here.

I do think the type of contextual offers where the ‘standard offer’ reflects the actual grades needed as a minimum to succeed in the course but contextual factors determine exactly who gets these offers may well be ‘most successful’.

The ‘standard offer’ is there as a minimum ‘guarantee of knowledge/ ability’ but the contextual factors ensure that certain already privileged groups do not dominate the cohort.

The recent Cambridge innovations around foundation years / bridging courses for students from deprived backgrounds is another way of ensuring that everyone has the knowledge needed to start the course despite earlier educational disadvantage.

@twelly it's common to offer catch up sessions for those students. Also first year of degree is typically a base level for everyone on the course (I was re-taught a lot of chemistry as there were some biologists who hadn't done Chemistry A-level). We were also offered additional maths for those with no Maths A-level.

A student who would have gotten a 9/A* at a private school who achieves lower at a state school will catch up. Otherwise what's the option, they just don't get to go?

I don't know what skills you think first year students on any course have that are impossible to learn once they're on the course. I've tutored a lot of them when I was a PhD student and some of them are clueless. I had to teach them how to write essays properly because half of them only had maths/physics/chemistry A-Levels and no humanities at all.

I agree @cantkeepawayforever .

The problem with catch up / revision sessions is that, in practice, the students who need to attend them often just don't turn up. You end up teaching the students who are going to do well anyway.

If she got a contextual offer it was because she meet the criteria for being disadvantaged.

(It would be interesting to know ‘below what level of A-level grade’ equates to ‘unable to access the course’, though. I suspect there is less correlation than one might expect between ‘grade required for admission’ and ‘actual content / skills essential for the degree’ in many subjects.)

Having been this child 20 years ago, the best thing you can do IMO is support her disappointment and discuss her options. I had Durham as first choice with 5 A grade A levels, A* GCSEs, Cambridge Latin and Greek certs, sports honours, outstanding school reference - sometimes that’s just the way it is.
I went to my second choice (also top Russell Group) had an amazing time, met my husband, have a great international career. My degree has been irrelevant to my actual career and most of my close uni friends weren’t on my course. With a History degree, unless your daughter wants to do something academic and specialised (therefore also v. competitive) her degree won’t be that relevant long term (unlike say, medicine). There will be other options available along the line, e.g. changing course, doing an MA.
Best of luck, she’s young and bright and you’re taking an active interest in her further education - things will work out for her - perhaps just not exactly as hoped for.

I hope your son can apply to other Russel group Unis and find the course he wants. My daughter went to Leeds and did a four year international degree, her year was in Canada.

Has your child posted this on Tiktok? My DD showed me something like this. This exact subject combo too. Apparently it's happened to a few people.

How do you know that many of the students getting contextual offers were not disadvantaged? The fixation on contextual offers is quite amusing. DS, an early applicant (Not for Oxbridge) had reduced offers from two of his high ranking uni applications and he is not contextual. He is not unique in this lots of people around the country are afforded reduced offers irrespective of their backgrounds.

The 80's and 90's are irrelevant. You do realise you pretty much need a degree to become a nurse now? Of course people can be happy without degrees, but it should be a choice, not the only option available.

Quite possibly the personal statement, yes. It's a very competitive course attracting top class candidates and of course the personal statement is considered as part of the whole - otherwise what would be the point of the PS?

In a former life I was a university admissions officer (not at Durham!) and there were occasions when I turned down people with good grades but poor personal statements or references, and other occasions when I made offers to people with excellent PSs and and references, but less good grades.

Each uni has different admissions criteria, as you've already noted. Did you go to an Open Day? They often advise at these events what they would consider an excellent application but if they didn't (or you didn't go) you can always phone them and ask for specific feedback on your DD's application.

I take it your daughter has called and spoken to an admissions officer. She should then ask to speak to someone who has a detailed understanding of how this decision was made and whether she can transfer to History after arriving at the university. She should also ask if she can be considered for History of she defers her start date by a year. Basically ram it home that she is committed to studying History and she wants to study it at Durham. Archaeology for a full 3 years doesn't cut it. It might not get anywhere, but it might. A bit of tenacity can impress.

@Overeggingthepudding Contextual offers would've been because your DD probably got those grades despite being in a crap school. The bar is pretty low tbh, we checked for my niece who goes to a rubbish school and wants to do a vet course. She doesn't meet their contextual offer criteria despite going to a comp with a 30% 9-4 GCSE pass rate and weekly stabbings in the area.

PS she will have taken her GCSEs the year of teacher assessed grades so I am afraid there are a lot more straight 9s in her year than usual.

Klute will never die - there's that much shit embedded in the floors it'll be preserved long past the next apocalypse. I went there sober once (had an interview the following morning)... apocalypse has nothing on Klute come 1am or so.

Honestly, it'll just be about the numbers. If they take 30 on, someone will always be 31st. And I bet 30 more behind them.

Good lesson that life can throw you a curveball, have to regroup and go with a plan B.

It used to exist within Durham as one of two functions... it ran the cinema club thing once a week (when Durham's small cinema was not known for getting cutting edge feature films on release) and its bar opened half an hour earlier than most of the college bars.
I actually went back to Durham to do a PGCE and pretty much none of the course had elected to go to Hild-Bede as a college though - which kind of surprised me (I'd drifted back to Castle out of loyalty to my undergrad days).

Think Durham for history has always been a bit of a bastard one to get into because of the fact that the history of the place tends to draw history buffs in in general, and Durham admissions have always been a bit crappily organised in terms of general uni admissions. I love the uni, loved my time there - but bloody hell it seems to have lost its way a lot in recent years (and I still sulk that they sold off the gorgeousness that was Old Shire Hall and haven't forgiven them for moving my beloved little crazy Politics department with three staircases all going off into crazy academics' attics in a very Hogwarts kinda way). I'm not sure I'd be overjoyed with my own kids getting set on applying there in the way the university currently is to be honest - apart from proximity to grandparents to keep an eye on 'em (and do their laundry so I didn't get it all at the end of term).

As for student satisfaction - I recently went back to do a second undergrad at one of the usually very low in the academic tables ex-polys and the place was fucking amazing in terms of how experienced and knowledgable our staff team were (vocational type course so all from the career moved into academia types), and how well support systems functioned (and this was during Covid so my mental health went down the shitter and the support in place for me with that - as someone who academically was going to bring in the results anyway, but who mentally was really floundering) and how helpful and dedicated to the students everyone was linked with our course. The uni apparently every year ask how the hell that particular course score so highly on satisfaction scores - and it's because the staff love their subjects and the intake numbers are such that they do have a feel for how everyone is getting on like a family.

Durham is amazing - but it can also be:
Hilly as fuck
Cobbles knacker your ankles (particularly the combination of cobbles + alcohol)
Incredibly incredibly small at times - if you go outside you're going to run into someone you know, but if you're trying to avoid someone - you are also going to run into someone you know
The nightclubs are shit - legendarily so in the case of Klute but you can replicate that experience by finding half the local rugby team and gluing all of your feet to the floor of your garden shed while drinking piss-weak beer and playing "cheesiest shit of the 1990s megamix" on a scratched CD. (My housemate actually managed to get Peter Stringfellow along to Klute one night!)

I think your daughter needs to decide what is more important - the university she goes to or the course she can study. I would imagine the latter is the better priority, though I guess it depends whether her desire for Durham in particular was academic/career-focused or lifestyle.

I opted not to go to my dream university (for lifestyle reasons) due to the cost but had a fantastic student life nonetheless. I got the degrees I wanted and enjoyed my time as a student. You never know what you'll really get at a university and especially in a new city anyway.

If it was for career reasons (eg, this university is especially well-regarded), doesn't the fact it's not her course of choice affect that anyway? Would she be better off/happier in the long run having studied history somewhere else or archaeology at Durham?

I didn’t get offers from my first choice. I still got a Russell Group and didn’t want to take a gap. It was brilliant for me. In hind sight I’m sure I ended up just where I needed to be. Your DD will do fine wherever she goes, and whatever she decides.
I wish her well.

No one with a “detailed understanding” will bother to speak to her.

If her heart is set on Durham, firstly do query it and make sure no mistakes were made by admissions - they can happen with computer codes. If no mistake and no chance of them changing their mind (most likely) my advice is for to take a gap year then reapply in September with grades ideally having taken a relevant gap year job (paid) or with a regular volunteer role at a museum or similar to add to her cv. There's so many excellent candidates, not everyone gets a place, and unfortunately sometimes it doesn't seem fair but they prefer traditional a levels

But do make sure it's your daughter who calls not you!

@CoffeeWithCheese You're right, it's the cockroach of nightclubs. god it was bad in the 80s. The history dept in my day was similar to your description of the politics dept - it was almost as though they made it deliberately difficult to find your tutor when you had a 9am. Can't think why...

Is this a "humble" brag?
Anyway they could accept and ask to transfer when they're in.
Also just bear in mind not everyone can get into popular courses. C'est la vie.